francophile 

"Benders". That's what I guess you call them when someone kicks the $#%@$ out of your box in transit at just the right spot?

I've never had much luck getting half-round stuff straight after something like this, much less the more squared fenders I'm accustomed to.

I will say, though... TPC was straight-up classy about it, full refund. Now I need to find someone better with metal than I to re-bend them, and gotta find mounting hardware (I see VO sells some bits)

"Pro tips" welcome on this one.

himespau 

Ouch.

SloButWide 

If you know people who are into custom motorcycles, ask them where they get their sheet metal done. Look for a friend-of-a-friend who does it as a sideline/hobby, because a pro with a one hour minimum would charge more than you might be willing to invest.

francophile 

I only paid ~$20 for them shipped so I'm not heavily out and could afford it. Was hoping to save anything over $20 to get hardware though.

The kink is my main concern, if I could get around that I think I could fix it. I'm wondering if my cotter press (VAR) would manage that, actually? It can exert manageable middle pressure on something...

cinco

Man, those look hammered.

Ahem.

Your best bet may be to apply some front/rear spreading pressure with a hand and a foot while massaging the area of the kink with the other hand. Double entendre notwithstanding, most bends like that can be more-or-less brought back by hand with minimal trouble. Keep in mind that aluminum doesn't like to bend twice and that you'll likely never get that rolled lip perfect, but you might end up with something you'd have to point out for anyone to notice. Just go slow and think about the movement you want the metal to go through while you're working.

bulldog1935

At that price, I'd forge on them a bit myself and straighten them out.
Even my new purchase from Jitehsha arrived with a slight shipping ding that I straightened - not perfect, but I'm probably the only one who notices. Wooden blocks make good anvils...

poprad

I second Bulldog's advice. When I fitted my Honjos they were pretty easy to bend to reduce/increase the radius (by either squeezing together or opening the width of the trough along its length). The aluminum used is a pretty soft variety, I bet you could use some old tires between the jaws of a pair of vise grips with slightly increasing pressure until you got the kink to flatten. I think you'll be surprised how easily the metal can be formed.

The Golden Boy 

"mettle"

met·tle
ˈmedl/
noun
noun: mettle; plural noun: mettles
a person's ability to cope well with difficulties or to face a demanding situation in a spirited and resilient way.





Sorry

bulldog1935

I have some nylon-jawed pliers (I work on OPs valuable antique fishing reels), and they work great - I've used them on my Honjo fenders.

francophile 

Thanks for the advice, all!

I'm going to tinker with these in the shop later today, will see how it pans out. I'll post an update.

No worries, word humor is always appreciated here!

gugie 

I received a practically completely flattened Lefol fender set from eBay france. Rather than contact the seller (price was pretty good), I decided to try and salvage it. I have a set of hole saws, and determined that a 2 3/4" sized one was approximately the same radius as the fender (65mm). I cut out a piece of 2x4, but offset it so that there was a flat spot in the cut-off piece.

Now I put the fender into the 2x4 "hole" that was left, and tapped the cuttoff into the fender, starting at a spot where the fender was still "round". I fed the fender into the "hole" bit by bit, and found that when I went from one end to the other, the fender was pretty dang straight.

I really should have made pictures, or a video of the entire process, next time I have an opportunity I'll do so.

JT1973

Thanks, @gugie, that's a great tip. I suppose you could do the same to open up or shorten the radius, tho maybe the hand-only technique works well enough not too bother. Anyway, glad to have another trick in the arsenal.
--

francophile 

That sounds way more elaborate than what I ended up with, but so does your damage. In fact, I feel sort of stupid for complaining about my little bend after hearing about yours!

I was sitting in the shop last night helping a friend tear down his "new" Trek 400 (I'm teaching him to rebuild) and I looked up on the wall and saw my rubber Quick-grip clips I use for damn near everything and had a wild thought.

Maybe exerting pressure from either side of the bend would push them back into shape?



End result isn't "perfect", but it's good enough for gov't work. I don't have a clever way to re-crimp the inside of the fender lip in a way that's clean enough it won't collapse the rollover metal. I've got a wide variety of tools in the shop from other hobbies, but nothing well-suited to the task, so I opted to leave "good enough" alone.

himespau 

Wow, that looks pretty nice.

gugie 

Here's a pic of the "tool" I referenced earlier:



2x4, hole saw, size the hole "next size bigger" than the fender - 1/8" larger is about right. Offset it from the edge so that the pilot hole is just off the edge of the wood.. Place the fender in the cutout and pound the bung* into the fender. Remove bung, move the fender up a bit, and repeat.

Even aluminum has a bit of elasticity to it, so you're thinking you're overdoing it, but when you pull the bung out, it'll spring back a bit.

*hey, it's my tool, I get to name the parts.

francophile 

That's pretty damn thoughtful, @gugie

How did you prevent flattening the rolled lip with the "bung"?

gugie 

Vintage Lefol fenders have a pretty big rolled lip*, so the didn't flatten out much. The parts that were flattened, already were. I made another tool out of an old pair of pliers and a grinder, creating a "lip" on the tool so I could get in there and pull it gack out. A ground down spoke is another tool. Honjo and vintage fenders have a big enough lip to hide a 22ga wire to power a tail light, vintage french style, using the fender/frame as the ground path.

technically, in sheet metal it's called a "hem". Just like your pant legs.

francophile 

Interesting, I never knew that. I've used specialty tools to roll fenders in the auto customization world, and I'd always heard this called a "rolled lip". I admittedly know very, very little about metal work and wood work, though, so I appreciate the info!

gugie 

Yeah, more random trivia: SheetMetal.Me ? Sheet Metal Hems

francophile 

Sometimes I wish posts could be +1'd or thumbed up.

So a teardrop hem it is. I probably have metal wire smaller than a coathanger that would help to re-round the hem. I'm going to test-fit the fenders on the bike that was expecting them.

bulldog1935

excellent job - no one will notice the divots